Ex-Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill recalls the moment ‘he shot dead Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’
O'Neill maintains he killed the al-Qaeda leader in 2011, blasting his head with two bullets for 'insurance’
A FORMER elite soldier from the crack assassination squad that killed Osama bin Laden has described the moment he claims he pulled the trigger and blew open the terror chief’s head.
Ex-Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill says he killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and has written a detailed account of how he slayed the al-Qaeda leader.
In his new book, The Operator, O'Neill paints a macabre picture of bin Laden's head cracking open after being shot.
And he claimed it had to be pressed back together for identification photos.
Recalling the moment he fired the killer shots, he said: "He had a woman in front of him, his hands on her shoulders.
“In less than a second, I aimed above the woman’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice.
“Bin Laden’s head split open and he dropped.
"I put another bullet in his head. Insurance.”
In an exclusive extract from Robert O'Neill's book in the , O’Neill describes the tense moment when his team of professional killers were dropped by helicopter and crept over to the terror chief’s secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May of 2011.
Once they entered he describes trailing at least five other Navy SEALs up the stairs to the second floor.
They believed this was where bin Laden, three of his four wives and 17 of his children were holed up.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Bin Laden's son, Khalid, was believed to be hiding around a corner and armed with an AK-47.
But O’Neill writes that a simple but devastatingly effective plan had been hatched for this very situation
Agents simply called out to him in Arabic, saying: “Khalid, come here.”
Popping his head round the corner, he shouted “What?”
But in chilling detail O’Neil recalls how the bullet entered the young man’s chin and exited at the back of his head.
Intelligence had suggested if Khalid was present then his dad would be upstairs.
Running upstairs they found two women who were pounced on.
And then, standing near the entrance of the bedroom at the foot of a bed was the man the American’s had been waiting to kill ever since 9/11.
O’Neill said Osama bin Laden standing near the entrance at the foot of a bed.
He said the terrorist was taller and thinner than he’d expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter.
Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368